90-Second Read: Hantavirus Outbreak Reportedly Due To Landfill Tourism

Five Hantavirus cases, three deaths, and a global cruise scare. The Centers For Disease Control and Prevention reported fewer than 900 Americans tested positive for Hantavirus infections over a 20-year period, at least one famous case caused the death of Gene Hackman's wife in their New Mexico home. With Hantavirus, ships may seem particularly risky but cases remain incredibly rare. Three passengers on the expedition cruise ship MV Hondius died after contracting the Andes strain of Hantavirus during a recent voyage. Five cases were confirmed and three more were suspected, with two sick passengers and crew and one possibly infected passenger evacuated to specialized hospitals in Europe.

This is the same Med Center that has treated cases of ebola, initial COVID cases, etc. The 2020s trained the travel industry to default to ship-based explanations for cruise outbreaks. The "Andes virus" strain of Hantavirus is not waterborne, not foodborne, and not transmitted via shared surfaces in the way norovirus is. It's unknown if he died by human-to-human transmission as he was unwell at the time. If the landfill theory holds, the ship was not the source of exposure.

The World Health Organization confirmed the cluster on May 7. While health authorities are cautious and treating the disease as serious, widespread infection and health security concerns remain unlikely at this time. Argentine investigators have publicly identified a Ushuaia landfill tour as the likely point of exposure. Several local operators run walking tours that pass through landfill or industrial fringe zones (why? It is transmitted primarily through contact with infected rodent droppings or, more rarely, human-to-human in close contact.

Never once have we (to my knowledge) sent someone on a landfill tour. Recently, the Independent published a story that the landfill visit might have been part of a bird-watching tour. Ushuaia, Argentina's southernmost major port and the embarkation point for most Antarctic expedition cruises, has a known rodent presence and an unusual local economy that includes informal tours of public works and peripheral industrial areas. I had a look through a couple of hundred Viator and Expedia excursions and tours and couldn't find a single one that tours a landfill. I can't, for the life of me, understand why anyone would want to tour a landfill and it's puzzling.